It was a controversial decision to say the least when Goshen County School Board trustees approved the district’s extracurricular drug testing policy last April.

And since the beginning of the 2009-10 school year in September, district staff have been charged with implementing the still highly debated policy.

District wide, 267 seventh through 12th graders have been tested as of the end of January – without a single one choosing not to give consent and partake in the testing, Superintendent Ray Schulte said

“We’ve not had a student yet refuse to take the test,” he said in discussing the policy’s implementation.

He said the district tests an average of about 15-30 students each week.

Fifteen students were set to undergo testing this week at Torrington High School, and 120 students in total have been tested there so far.

Assistant Principal and Activities Director Jim English oversees the implementation of the program at the school, a duty consisting of supervising the testing of about 8-10 students every week.

English receives a list of the randomly chosen students from Safe Sport, the Ohio-based company providing the testing and analysis, the morning tests are scheduled and then goes down the list one by one and brings students to the office area for testing. The testing takes place in a bathroom otherwise designated only for faculty use, he said.

“We go to that area in an effort to maintain confidentiality,” English said.

If the student doesn’t need to use the bathroom at that time, which is sometimes a problem, English said he lets the student drink some water in his office while he retrieves the next person on the list.

While admitting some students aren’t too excited about having to do the drug tests, English said he’s not aware of anyone who has gone as far as quitting an activity because they don’t want to undergo testing.

“I’ve never heard someone say ‘I don’t want to be in that program because I don’t want to be in the pool,” he said.

To the northwest, Lingle-Fort Laramie schools Principal Sally Crowser said the drug testing has “gone well.” The frequency of the testing at the schools is less than at Torrington High School, however, testing days pop up about once a month, Crowser said.

With all of the peer pressure he thinks his students face these days, Torrington Middle School Assistant Principal Rick Cotant said he sees the drug testing as a positive “out” for young people.

“It gives them another excuse, I guess, not to do (substances),” he said.

Similar to the setup at the high school, Cotant said the middle school uses a bathroom in the nurse’s office in an effort to ensure student privacy.

While the testing has largely gone off without a hitch at the school, Cotant said the random aspect of the testing means some weeks go by without any testing. On the other side of the coin, as many as 16 students are sometimes tested all in one morning, he said.





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